Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 2553-2564
I trust I have not wasted breath:
I think we are not wholly brain,
Magnetic mockeries; not in vain,
Like Paul with beasts, I fought with Death;
Not only cunning casts in clay:
Let Science prove we are, and then
What matters Science unto men,
At least to me? I would not stay.
Let him, the wiser man who springs
Hereafter, up from childhood shape
His action like the greater ape,
But I was born to other things.
- Tennyson's really throwing down the gauntlet to science here. He argues that humans aren't just brains or smart robots made of clay.
- "Cunning casts in clay," to be exact—the alliteration here with the repetition of the hard C-sound gives this sentence a sort of bitter edge to it. He's kind of hostile to science here, guys.
- "Go ahead, Science, try to prove it," is what Tennyson's basically saying.
- He's now comfortable in the belief that he "was born to other things." This means he has lost his previous doubts and believes there is a higher purpose for mankind after all.